Poems of To-Day | Page 6

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For permission to use copyright poems the English Association is greatly indebted to the authors; to the literary executors of Mary Coleridge (Sir Henry Newbolt), J. E. Flecker (Mrs. Flecker), Lionel Johnson (Mr. Elkin Mathews), George Meredith (Trustees, through Mr. W. M. Meredith), R. L. Stevenson (Mr. Lloyd Osbourne), Arthur Symons (through Mr. Edmund Gosse), and Francis Thompson (Mr. Wilfrid Meynell); and to the following publishers in respect of the poems enumerated:
_Mr. B. H. Blackwell_:
1. S. Cripps, _Lyra Evangelistica_ (Nos. 25, 26, 39).
_Messrs. W. Blackwood & Sons_:?Alfred Noyes, _Drake_ (No. 12).
_Mr. A. H. Bullen_:?W. B. Yeats, _Poems_ (Nos. 101, 133, 146).
_Messrs. Burns & Oates_:?Francis Thompson, _Works_ (Nos. 105, 106, 110, 123, 127, 145). Alice Meynell, _Collected Poems_ (Nos. 62, 74, 81, 107, 111, 115,
137, 140, 147).?Shane Leslie, _Eyes of Youth_ (No. 84).
_Messrs. Chatto & Windus_:?R. L. Stevenson, _Underwoods_ (Nos. 51, 73, 90, 109), and
_Songs of Travel_ (Nos. 29, 32, 68, 71, 94,
96, 135).
_Messrs. Constable & Co._:?Walter de la Mare, _The Listeners_ (Nos. 1, 61, 67, 117, 142).
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_Messrs. J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd._:?W. Canton, _The Comrades_ (No. 28).?G. K. Chesterton, _The Wild Knight_ (No. 131).
_Messrs. Duckworth & Co._:?Hilaire Belloc, _Verses_ (Nos. 35, 45, 112).?T. Sturge Moore, _The Gazelles_ (Nos. 89, 93).
_Mr. A. O. Fifield_:?W. H. Davies, _Songs of Joy_ (Nos. 48, 86), and
_Nature Poems_ (No. 53).
_Messrs. Max Goschen, Ltd._:?J. E. Flecker, _The Golden Journey to Samarcand_* (Nos. 24, 60).
_Mr. William Heinemann_:?W. S. Blunt, _Poetry of_ (Nos. 36, 64, 65).?Edmund Gosse, _Collected Poems_ (Nos. 82, 87).?Arthur Symons, _Poems_ (Nos. 85, 113, 130).
_Mr. John Lane_:?L. Abercrombie, _Interludes and Poems_ (No. 31).?John Davidson, _Ballads and Songs_ (Nos. 37, 38, 80).?William Watson, _The Hope of the World_ (Nos. 66, 121).?Margaret L. Woods, _Lyrics and Ballads_ (Nos. 10, 91).
_Mr. Elkin Mathews_:?Laurence Binyon, _Poems_ (1894), (No. 79),
_London Visions_ (Nos. 75, 77), and
_England_ (Nos. 16, 57, 129).
Lionel Johnson, _Poems_ (Nos. 9, 95, 118).
_Messrs. Maunsel & Co._:?P. R. Chalmers, _Green Days and Blue Days_ (No. 99).?Padraic Colum, _Wild Earth_ (No. 124).
_Messrs. Methuen & Co._:?Rudyard Kipling, _The Seven Seas_ (No. 50), and
_The Five Nations_ (No. 34).?Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch, _Poems and Ballads_ (No. 8), and
_The Vigil of Venus_ (No. 44).?Herbert Trench, _New Poems_ (Nos. 14, 92).
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_Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd._:?Rupert Brooke, _1914 and Other Poems_ (Nos. 20, 21, 47).?John Drinkwater, _Swords and Ploughshares_ (Nos. 19, 40, 41). Laurence Housman, _Selected Poems_ (No. 83).?Rose Macaulay, _The Two Blind Countries_ (No. 46).
_Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co._:?Robert Bridges, _Poetical Works_ (Nos. 54, 56, 63, 76, 104, 125, 126, 128, 132, 139, 141).
_Messrs. T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd._:?Ernest Radford, _Poems_ (No. 42).?W. B. Yeats, _Poems_ (Nos. 49, 88, 138, 143, 144).
_The Poetry Book Shop_ (through Mr. Harold Monro).?Ralph Hodgson, _Eve_ (No. 5).
? Now transferred to Mr. Martin Seeker.
The Editor of _The Times_ courteously confirmed the permissions given by Mr. George Russell ("A. E.") in respect of No. 23, and by Mr. Laurence Binyon in respect of No. 22--the latter being reprinted in _The Winnowing Fan_ (Elkin Mathews).
The Association desires also to acknowledge the generosity with which authors and publishers have waived or reduced customary copyright fees, in view of the special objects of their organisation. They regret that considerations of copyright have rendered it impossible to include poems by T. E. Brown, Thomas Hardy, W. E. Henley, and A. E. Housman.
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POEMS OF TO-DAY
1. ALL THAT'S PAST
Very old are the woods;?And the buds that break?Out of the briar's boughs,?When March winds wake,?So old with their beauty are--?Oh, no man knows?Through what wild centuries?Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks;?And the rills that rise?Where snow sleeps cold beneath?The azure skies?Sing such a history?Of come and gone,?Their every drop is as wise?As Solomon.
Very old are we men;?Our dreams are tales?Told in dim Eden?By Eve's nightingales;
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We wake and whisper awhile,?But, the day gone by,?Silence and sleep like fields?Of amaranth lie.
_Walter de la Mare._
2. PRE-EXISTEHCE
I laid me down upon the shore?And dreamed a little space;?I heard the great waves break and roar;?The sun was on my face.
My idle hands and fingers brown?Played with the pebbles grey;?The waves came up, the waves went down,?Most thundering and gay.
The pebbles, they were smooth and round?And warm upon my hands,?Like little people I had found?Sitting among the sands.
The grains of sands so shining-small?Soft through my fingers ran;?The sun shone down upon it all,?And so my